Cash arrives in winter; revenue happens in July
A camp that posts deposits straight to income shows a phantom profitable winter and an alarming summer, and it hides the one number an operator actually needs: how much of the bank balance is spoken for. We structure camp books so the answer is always on the balance sheet. Deposits land in a deferred revenue account tagged to a session, spring balance payments join them there, and nothing becomes income until the session runs.
Your refund policy belongs in the books too. Fees refundable in full until a June cut-off are a harder liability than a forfeitable deposit, and the ledger should show, on any given day, how much of the cash could still walk out the door. That figure drives spring spending decisions far better than the bank balance does.
| Moment in the year | What the bank sees | What the books should say |
|---|---|---|
| Registration opens in January; deposits arrive | Cash climbing | Deferred revenue, tagged by session and site |
| Balances paid through spring | Cash at its annual peak | Deferred revenue grows; refundable portion tracked against the policy |
| A family cancels inside the refund window | A refund goes out | Liability reversed; no revenue was ever recorded |
| The session runs in July | Little new cash | Deferred revenue releases to income, week by week |
| A no-show forfeits a deposit after the cut-off | Nothing moves | The kept amount becomes income; for a taxable camp it is generally HST-included |
A payroll year eight weeks wide
Camp payroll compresses a company's worth of employment events into one summer, and most of the staff are students. Ontario's student minimum wage applies to workers under 18 employed during a school holiday, so a camp roster usually carries two wage floors at once. Canada Day lands inside almost every camp calendar, which means public holiday pay calculated from the previous four weeks of wages; the August Civic Holiday, despite appearances, is not an ESA public holiday. Vacation pay of at least 4% is owed either way, and we typically pay it out on every cheque so season-end is clean.
The statutory details split by age. Staff under 18 pay no CPP while EI premiums apply from the first dollar, and CPP contributions must start the month after an 18th birthday, which for at least one counsellor will happen mid-season. We collect SINs and permanent home addresses at hire, because February's T4s chase students who have long since moved back to campus. Then comes the finale: a Record of Employment for every departing employee, filed through ROE Web in the last week of August. All of it runs inside End-to-End Accounting, so the payroll wave is our problem, not the camp director's.
Code every cost to the camper-week
Food, bus routes, program supplies and counsellor wages only become useful information when they attach to a session. We build the chart of accounts and QuickBooks Online class structure around sessions and sites, with Dext catching the till receipts a program director collects buying craft supplies in July. Coded that way, the books can say what one camper-week costs to deliver and which session carried the season, which is exactly the raw material our Fractional CFO work turns into pricing and capacity decisions.
Ten quiet months still have deadlines
Seasonal revenue does not make the compliance calendar seasonal. HST returns fall due on their own schedule for taxable camps, T4s are due at the end of February, the corporate year-end arrives whenever it was set, and insurance, lease and bus-contract renewals scatter across the winter. We keep the monthly close running through the off-season so January's registration opens on reconciled books rather than a ten-month backlog.
For a small day camp run by one or two owners, CPA Quick Support at $99 a month covers the winter questions between engagements, from a CRA letter to a wage-floor check before hiring opens. Full-service books, payroll and filings are scoped and quoted in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call, so the fee is known before the season is.
